Future of Hamburg's Innovation: Is It Possible?
Hamburg Innovation Summit Celebrates 10-Year Anniversary with Record Attendance
The Hamburg Innovation Summit, held on July 15, 2025, marked its 10-year anniversary with a significant milestone - attracting over 3,000 innovation-focused individuals, nearly double the number from the previous year. The event, held in the industrial halls of the Hamburg Oberhafen quarter, featured six stages with over 140 speakers.
The summit was a melting pot of ideas, with topics ranging from Artificial Intelligence and Quantum Computing to Novel Food, Mobility & Urban Development, Industry 4.0, Climate and Energy, Advanced Materials, Social Innovation, Entrepreneurship, War of Talents, Health & Lifestyle, and the application of science and technology.
One of the highlights of the summit was the presentation of the strategy for Hamburg's first quantum computer, which included the project COOKIE - a KI-supported solution for image-based damage detection on empty containers. However, further details about the quantum computing application fields and the progress of the project were not provided.
Melanie Leonhard, Senator for Economy, Labor and Innovation, opened the summit by emphasizing the importance of innovation, particularly in the health sector. She underscored the need for innovation to benefit people and drive progress.
In addition, the federal government announced the funding of a new startup factory called "Impossible Founders", with over 50 million euros available for innovative Hamburg startups in the "Deep Tech" sector. The focus of "Impossible Founders" is on Green Technologies and the development of new materials in connection with Artificial Intelligence and Data Science.
The Trend Monitor 2025, conducted among summit attendees, showed that around 47% of respondents considered the innovation prospects for the next five years as rather positive. However, challenges such as a pronounced fear of change (32.8%), excessive bureaucracy (29.5%), and lack of risk-taking (27.9%) were identified as major innovation barriers.
Startup City Hamburg organized a panel titled "From Migration to Innovation: Startup Successes in Hamburg", featuring founders with migration backgrounds from Hamburg. The panel aimed to highlight the contributions of immigrant entrepreneurs to the city's innovation landscape.
The summit also featured a Startup Stage focusing on topics such as Social Entrepreneurship, Venture Clienting, pitch formats, and funding opportunities. Hamburg Invest described the city as being on a good path for innovation, citing the partially still emerging Hamburg Innovation Parks in Altona, Bergedorf, Finkenwerfer, and Harburg, as well as the already well-functioning tecHHub Hamburg.
Two DESY projects, PETRA IV and IceCube-Gen2, were recently classified as "research infrastructure of national importance" by the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology, and Space (BMFTR). However, specific information about the deep-tech startups in Hamburg that received funding at the 2025 Hamburg Innovation Summit was not available in the provided data.
The summit closed with a renewed sense of optimism and determination, as participants left inspired and energized, ready to tackle the challenges and seize the opportunities that lie ahead in the world of innovation.
